Steve GannIn Search of Reality -- Diogenes and That Damned Lamp.
October 13th 2007 02:45
Truth is truly a double-edged sword. But there is a harsher reality. We see the same things differently. Your truth is your conception of reality and you are mistaken, for I am the true custodian of truth. How do I know this? Why because it echoes in my soul with absolute conviction – a bone dead certainty.
Ease of living without sensing what happens outside our reality is possible, but it has its price. This is in the choices we make daily. To find truth we must first establish a framework of existence. We must establish coordinates for our entry into the universe and decide how we are going to observe it. At the same time we choose masks to suit our convenience. This person is my friend, for him I will wear the mask of affability. It doesn’t mean I will be more truthful, just that I will hide the blade of my intentions. If we choose to mask ourselves and our designs, how then can we expect to read the motivations of others?
The question we must always ask ourselves is, would we rather be right, or would we rather learn what is right. The difference is crucial. To learn what is right we must be willing to submit our most treasured beliefs to close scrutiny. We must be willing to discard our errors and admit to our mistakes. As we move from childhood into the adult arena, there is always the temptation to adopt positions on certainty, to embrace bodies of belief that are tried and true.
Science, history, social sciences and religion; all suffer from dogmatic even hysterical adherence to a body of beliefs at any cost. The basic premise championed here, is that any belief which is worth supporting, must also be subject to examination:
Most men, even scientists, do not have the courage to follow the basic tenets of science; that even though they may call it science, they actually stand on a structure of faith. And having had one structure taken out from under them, they seize upon another and guard it with a desperate frenzy, lest it too be threatened.
Speculative theory then becomes canonised law; suggested procedure becomes ritual; tentative statements become rote. And if their practice of it makes them successful, it becomes impossible for them to conceive of any other truth than their own. It works, therefore it must be right. The originator, having had the flexible intelligence to vary from the old and create a new, might have been able to conceive of still yet another structure than his own; but his followers have the proof of their own infallibility always before their eyes.
Any theory is true within the framework in which it applies; and any theory is false outside its own coordinate system. It is never the accuracy of the theory as an absolute, but rather the persistence of applying it and staying well within the boundaries of its framework which brings success.
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Mark Clifton and Frank Riley They’d Rather Be Right Astounding Magazine: London, Atlas/Street and Smith
March 1955(British Edition) Part III p 111.
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